Golden State Warriors center Andrew Bogut high fives point guard Stephen Curry after scoring a 3-pointer during the third quarter at Oracle Arena. / Kelley L Cox, USA TODAY Sports

by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

OAKLAND ‚?? The sweat was still dripping off of Bob Myers' smiling face long after his Golden State Warriors had survived this slug-fest.

The 38-year-old general manager stood in the hallway at Oracle Arena after his team's 92-88 win in Game 6 over the Denver Nuggets, still trying to process those frantic final minutes and figure out how the Warriors managed to move on to face the San Antonio Spurs in the second round. It didn't matter anymore, of course - the 10 fourth-quarter turnovers that left this rabid crowd enraged as an 18-point lead was cut to four in less than five minutes, the surreal sequence of bad choices and poise-less play that threatened everything they had worked for. This was no small victory in these parts, where playoff appearances come once every couple of decades and one of the league's most loyal fanbases was yearning for a change.

This certainly qualifies.

"The greatest joy for me is to reward this fan-base," Myers, a former agent and native of nearby Alamo who is in his second season at the front-office helm, told USA TODAY Sports afterward. "They deserve to see a successful product. They deserve to see playoff games. To get to the playoffs was meaningful personally, because this is the team I grew up rooting for and wanted to see get back on track."

But that finish. That wild, helter-skelter finish.

"At the end of the game, what I kept thinking was, 'You came this far, for the team more than me, and the coaching staff and the trainers, to come that far and not complete it would have been very, very hard," Myers said. "I'm happy it worked out the way it did."

Playing in what was the franchise's second playoff appearance in 19 seasons, the Warriors made the mistake of easing off the gas pedal with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter. They dribbled out possessions with one eye always on the slow-ticking clock, passed up open shots and got careless with the ball while the listless Nuggets finally came to life. Denver went on a 13-0 run to cut the lead to 80-75 before the Warriors finally showed some pulse, then nearly pulled it during a wild final minute in which Golden State seemed to try every conceivable way to give the game away.

"It's hard to put (what happened late) into words," Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. "When the first two turnovers happened, it's like, 'Alright, we'll get it right.' Two turnovers happened, (and) they started making threes. The lead starts to dwindle down.

"Coach (Mark Jackson) told us, 'Hey, we got this 18-point lead, we've played well the whole game (and) we're going to figure out how to win this game, to get out of here. That's what we did."

Curry had 22 points on 6 of 14 shooting and eight assists, but it was Golden State center Andrew Bogut that stole his spotlight with season highs in points (14) and rebounds (21) while adding four blocks. The center who was traded here from Milwaukee last season saw his season go from miserable to joyous in ways that he never could have imagined.

Limited to just 32 games this season after his left ankle surgery in late April 2012 that was only supposed to sideline him through October, Bogut was a forceful presence on the defensive end and a key part of the Warriors offense that needed someone counter the Nuggets team that is so proficient on the offensive glass. Yet while speaking to just two reporters in a hallway inside the arena afterward, Bogut revealed that he nearly missed out on Game 6 altogether because of pain in the ankle that persists but took a pain-killing injection for the first time in his eight-year career that saved his day.

"I almost didn't play today, to be honest with you," Bogut said. "I took a shot before the game, the first one I've taken all year, that I've ever taken in my career. It got me over the line, thankfully. I'm very, very, good now, but I'm not looking forward to waking up in the morning."

Bogut, the Australian who has never been shy about his penchant for pub hopping, said he abstained from drinking this season because beer would cause his ankle to swell. As the Warriors headed out to celebrate their win, he planned on joining them without joining in.

"A couple of the guys are going out, but I just don't want to risk (drinking) and wake up in the morning and then have an issue," he said. "I'll stick to my sparkling water with lemon."

The Nuggets, who won a franchise-record 57 games this season but played in the postseason without small forward Danilo Gallinari, were led by small forward Andre Iguodala (24 points, nine rebounds and six assists). But they were undone by a season-low 34.7% shooting night in which point guard Ty Lawson hit just 7 of 21 shots, forward Wilson Chandler was 5 of 17 and backup point guard Andre Miller was 3 of 12.

"When you miss shot after shot after shot - pretty good shots, I thought, most of the time -it creates frustration," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "It creates an edge we had to fight through. As I said, we did, but the three-ball got loose and we couldn't make a shot to build any confidence or rhythm."

After trailing 41-24 in the second quarter, the Warriors surged ahead during a third quarter that bore some resemblance to the Game 4 game here in which Curry scored 19 points in a span of four minutes. He wasn't quite that unconscious as Golden State took a 73-62 lead, but he was close.

He scored 14 points in the quarter while burying four three-pointers with his vintage silky style ‚?? a quick-trigger stepback from the left wing gave the Warriors their first lead since the opening minutes, a 26-footer after his pump-fake sent Ty Lawson flying by, a right-wing three and another from a nearby spot that came off an airborne touch pass from Draymond Green (16 points, 10 rebounds) that belied his rookie status. But Curry had his playmaking hat on, too, finding Bogut for a dunk after losing Lawson with a crossover and behind-the-back move in what was one of his three assists in the period.

As if the Warriors fans needed any more incentive to reenact the 2007 decibel-levels that became local legend during the Warriors' upset of top-seeded Dallas in the 'We Believe' first round, the surprising appearance of injured forward David Lee in the team's layup line did ignited the already-raucous crowd. Fans standing courtside looked on with jaws dropped at the sight of Lee in uniform again, many of them muttering about 'Willis Reed' and then, inevitably, having to explain the reference to the younger ones in their presence. Lee had suffered a torn right hip flexor in Game 1 and was expected to miss the rest of the season. He only played for one minute.

Like everyone else on the Warriors' end, Lee agonized over that final stretch.

"We were up 18, and I was celebrating, having a ball, and then it seems like two minutes later all of a sudden it's a single-digit game and every possession mattered again," Lee said. "Give them credit for not giving up, but I was just happy we found a way‚?¶.I'm happy it ended the way it did, but man it got my heart rate up."

He wasn't alone in that regard.

Warriors owner Joe Lacob, who headed the group that bought the team in 2010, said half-jokingly that he had heart palpitations during the game.

"Honestly, it was a fantastic, great experience," Lacob told USA TODAY Sports. "What I love about it is it was all team - business side, basketball side. Everybody is on the same page in this organization."

But Lee's presence didn't exactly kickstart the Warriors, who trailed 25-21 after the first quarter, in large part, because the Nuggets attacked the glass with a dominant desperation. They grabbed six offensive boards in the first quarter alone (five from Kenneth Faried and JaVale McGee) and had eight second-chance points, overcoming an 11-of-27 shooting start while seeming to negate whatever emotional lift Lee's presence might have provided. Lee entered for the first time with 2:27 left in the period, missed an 18-footer, grabbed a rebound and then departed 92 seconds later.

The Nuggets' wax job on the glass came despite the fact that Warriors coach Mark Jackson opted to go big with his starting lineup this time around. He started forward Carl Landy, thereby eliminating the three-guard starting lineup (Curry, Jarrett Jack and Klay Thompson) that had been in place since after Lee was injured in Game 1.

Denver led 42-40 at the half, when it seemed as if the best roller derby team of the two would be the one with the edge. Loose balls turned into breaks, tipped rebounds led to inexcusable putbacks, and the crowd that ended each and every sentence with an exclamation point rode this roller coaster of sloppy play with no shortage of playoff passion.

The rim wasn't kind to either side, as the Nuggets shots just 34% (18 of 53), while the Warriors were just 38.5% from the field (15 of 39). Curry and Thompson, who Warriors coach Mark Jackson had deemed the best shooting backcourt in NBA history after Game 2, were a combined 2 of 13. Iguodala, whose 25-point, 12-rebound and seven assist outing in Game 5 had been the elixir that Denver needed in Game 5, was in a stupor as he misfired on six of seven shots and grabbed just two rebounds. Nuggets Andre Miller and Wilson Chandler were a combined 4 of 16 from the field before the break.